


together, apart

by spilled_notes



Series: Mad March Prompt Challenge [14]
Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_notes/pseuds/spilled_notes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt 'reading a book together'.  Rhona and Phyllis, and the intimacy of reading a book together (even when you're apart).</p>
            </blockquote>





	together, apart

‘ _Pride and Prejudice?_ ’ Rhona suggests, fingers caressing a clothbound edition.

‘Surely it should be something we haven’t already read? How about something Scottish – Walter Scott?’

‘You do know he’s pretty much the reason for all those tartan shops on the Royal Mile?’ Rhona grimaces, and holds up another book.

‘Seriously, darling? Grassic Gibbon?’

They circle the tables and shelves, tossing suggestions back and forth, until:

‘ _Great Expectations?’_

‘I’ve read it.’

‘I always thought that was a book people only _pretended_ to have read,’ Rhona smiles.

‘My English teacher was big on Dickens,’ Phyllis explains.

‘And was your English teacher also an attractive young woman?’

‘She might have been,’ Phyllis admits.

‘What about this?’

Phyllis raises her eyebrows.

‘Oh, don’t tell me you’ve already read this as well?’

‘No,’ she smiles. ‘Miss Jackson never introduced me to Tolstoy. But that really is a book people only pretend to have read, isn’t it?’

‘Can you come up with anything better?’

‘I suppose it would at least keep us busy for a while,’ Phyllis frowns.

‘Not worried you’ll have had enough of me before we get half way through, are you?’ Rhona teases.

Phyllis skirts the display between them, steps close enough to murmur in Rhona’s ear. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever tire of you, darling.’ She reaches past her to pick up a copy, arm just brushing hers, and Rhona suppresses a shiver.

‘Well you’re committed for at least the length of this monster now,’ she smiles.

They leave hand in hand, each weighed down by a copy of _War and Peace_.

*          *          *

Rhona’s copy lives on her bedside table. It’s something of a comfort, particularly on the long winter nights with no one to come home to, no warm arms and loving smile. She scolds herself for being sentimental – yet still she pulls on the jumper Phyllis favours and curls up to read a couple of chapters before bed, comforted by the knowledge that, over three hundred miles away, Phyllis is doing the same. Somehow the distance feels a little less, the gaps between time together a little shorter.

*          *          *

Sometimes they read together, from the same copy, Rhona cradled between Phyllis’s long legs, head resting on her shoulder, as they take it in turns to read chapters aloud.

Rhone closes her eyes when Phyllis reads, feeling the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes in and then speaks, the vibration of each word through her back, the voice right beside her ear, stirring strands of hair.

Phyllis rests her cheek against Rhona’s hair, relishing the sound of her voice, the vowels and soft rolled r’s that she’s fallen in love with.

More often than not, hands and lips wander; time together is precious, after all. Sometimes the book is abandoned with a bookmark carefully placed first; other times it’s unceremoniously dropped to the floor.

Today it’s the latter. It starts innocently enough, one of Phyllis’s hands covering Rhona’s on the edge of the book, the other resting on her stomach as Rhona reads. But a few paragraphs in, her thumb begins caressing the thin, sensitive skin of Rhona’s wrist.

Halfway down the page, Rhona’s breath hitches when cool fingers sneak between the buttons of her blouse and trace patterns over her ribcage.

‘We’ll never find out what happens to Natasha if you keep this up,’ she warns, but Phyllis just smiles into her hair.

She fumbles turning the page when a hand skims down her side and across her stomach to pause on the jut of her hip, fingertips pressing enough to draw a soft moan and tear her attention from the words.

‘You know,’ Phyllis murmurs between kisses around her ear, down the side of her neck, ‘your accent gets stronger,’ another kiss, another press of her fingers, ‘when you’re turned on.’

Rhona twists to kiss her. The book hits the floor with a thud.

*          *          *

After – after Robbie Morton and Michael Thompson, after the truth comes out and Rhona is filled with anger and hurt and disappointment – _War and Peace_ is still there, taunting her. A reminder of what was, what could have been.

And Rhona’s chest aches when she sees it. She reaches out, fingers trembling, starts to pick it up but hesitates, instead lightly touches the cover before letting her hand fall into her lap with a heavy sigh.

She can’t bring herself to read. It hurts too much: the memory of Phyllis’s voice, of kisses and caresses, of plans for the future.

*

Phyllis’s copy is waiting for her, too. She stares at it, rests her hand on the cover.

He’d lied to her, and she’d believed him, and done something stupid to protect him. And now Rhona –

She doesn’t quite manage to stifle the sob, grips the book hard, fingers curling the edges of the pages.

Eventually she opens it and, conjuring Rhona’s voice, begins to read, allowing herself a small, foolish flicker of hope that she will be forgiven, that they can find out what happens to Pierre, Natasha and Andrei together.


End file.
